The Best Defense Is A Good Offense

“When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto Thee, into Thy holy temple.”  Jonah 2:7

Talk about having a bad day.  Jonah was instructed by God, whom He served, to go to Nineveh and preach to them because of their wickedness.  However, Jonah didn’t want to go and tell them that God would forgive them if they repented, basically because he thought that the wicked people of Nineveh didn’t deserve to be let off the hook for their sin.  (We know that because when he did finally go and preach, the people repented, and God did not bring judgment upon them, but that made Jonah angry–Jonah 3:10; 4:1).  To try and avoid his assigned mission, he fled to Joppa and boarded a ship to Tarshish thinking that he could run away from the LORD.

Of course, we all know the story of how God sent a fierce storm while Jonah was on board the ship.  The storm was so violent that the sailors were fearful and superstitious, so they cast lots, something like drawing straws, to determine who had brought this “jinx” upon them.  The result of their casting lots fell on Jonah.  He admitted to them that he was fleeing from the LORD and knew this storm was brought on by God because of him.  He told the sailors to throw him into the sea and calm would be restored.  They didn’t want to be responsible for his death and tried to row their way out of the storm to no avail.  With no where else to turn, they threw Jonah overboard and the sea immediately became as smooth as glass.  This incident caused these heathen sailors to fear the LORD.  However, this wasn’t the end of Jonah.  God still had plans for him.

A great fish was sent to swallow Jonah.  I can’t imagine how gross that would have been to be inside the stomach of a huge fish, perhaps a whale.  Any smaller fish that the big fish swallowed would have been consumed by stomach acids and digested.  However, God kept Jonah alive and safe giving him time to consider his options.  Of course, he only had one option.  He was now at the lowest point of his life when he remembered that the LORD was still with him, and he could pray a prayer of repentance and for deliverance which is what he did.  The big fish coughed him up on the shore, and God was waiting for him.

Jonah had to learn the hard way that prayer is not a last resort, but the first line of defense.  However, that’s the story of so many of us.  We try everything we can think of to solve our problems, and then, as a last resort, we ask God to help us.  The better strategy is to go on offense as a prayer warrior and to study God’s “playbook”, His word, in order to be ready to meet life’s challenges and serve the LORD as best we can.  As they say, “The best defense is a good offense.”